Mailbag

‘We Were the First Couple to be Married’ at the UC

My name was Ellen Kay Loebl Harris, and I was a young widow with a 2-year-old girl when I started college at Colorado State College (now UNC). My second year, I took Humanities from Richard Peyton, who had just moved to Greeley from Los Angeles. We didn’t begin dating until two quarters after I finished his class.

We were the first couple to be married in the brand new student union ballroom (University Center) on Dec. 17, 1966.

We left in 1969 for Tallahassee so that my husband could obtain his Humanities Ph.D. from Florida State University, which he did, and we have lived here very happily ever since.

Our neighbors, the Nickersons (Bruce, BA-96, and Lisa), came here to Tallahassee in 2006 for jobs. We were very surprised to find out that they were from Greeley, too. Yes, it’s truly “a small world.”

— Ellen K. Peyton (BA-66)

NV : The UC opened in 1965. Since then, the student center has served as host to thousands of events including weddings, anniversaries and community functions.

Trivia: Win a UNC Gift Bag

Tell us which co-founder of the Black Panther Party spoke at the Feb. 1, 1983, opening of UNC’s Marcus Garvey Cultural Center to be entered into a drawing for a UNC backpack containing a variety of UNC-branded items — coffee mugs, pens, pennants and more.

Congratulations to the winners of last issue’s trivia contest, whose names were randomly drawn from entries with the correct answer. Kirk Leichliter, Rob Edmisson and Ginny McCann were among the many who knew that the opening of the Michener library was delayed six months by a Jan. 6, 1970, fire that was started by a construction heater.

Each year at UNC…

More than 12,000 students enroll for classes.

More than 80% of first-year students receive financial aid.

Psychology majors provide more than 20,000 hours of community service.

Nursing students provide more than 1 million hours of free healthcare.

Business students manage a UNC Foundation portfolio valued at more than $1 million that funds student scholarships.

Arts students host numerous workshops and present more than 250 public events.

More financial aid is needed: Students received $123 million in aid in 2011-12.